Jungle Bashing

Jungle Bashing

Paul Arden | Tuesday, 27 February 2024

I’ve been slowly upgrading my Malaysian truck, with the plan to car-top the Rocket C to Thailand (as we used to do back in the day, with Squeaker), as well as to explore off-road tracks around Malaysia, looking for Mahseer. The owner of Red Springs 4x4 had an interesting idea of offering off-road fly fishing trips. True, he was trying to sell me a roof-top tend at the time as well as a 2 inch vehicle lift with bigger tyres… but it’s an interesting idea!!

And then there is East Malaysia – Sabah and Sarawak – to explore. “On The Fly” would like to go fishing there for a season, me too!! So a month long visit with the Snakehead Truck sounds to me like a fantastic idea.  But first, later this month, Ashly and I will car-top one of the boats to Thailand. I’ve had the roof rack modified by Red Springs to fit the boat. The idea is to winch it on to the roof. I haven’t tried this yet, but in theory it should work!!

This week Tim is over for a short trip. In fact he arrives tomorrow evening. I’ve been busy getting the Battleship ready so that he doesn’t lose any time shopping or loading the boat. Basically I pick him up, he stays at Belum Rainforest Resort for one night and then four full days of fly fishing. Fingers crossed it’s good right now. We should find Snakehead babies as well as Gourami. That’s the plan!

My online coaching has been going well. I have some exceptionally high level casters now. In fact I’m training two competitors who should be at the WCs in Sweden this year. That’s been a lot of fun. One is very very good indeed at the moment.

Lots to organise for Tim’s trip. A food and fuel run today. Then I must tie some flies. And finally I’m providing tackle this time, so I need to get that organised too. Tim is bringing over a Minn Kota 40lb thruster which he plans to stick down his trouser legs. I’m looking forward to shifting down the lake. We will have to have a campfire.

 

Sungai Tiang

Sungai Tiang, the project I’ve been assisting in Royal Belum, is now open and crystal clear. Perfect for fly fishing. If you want to be the first anglers to fish the river this year then please get in touch. We are currently building their website and social media pages.

The price is 400USD/day for one person and 600USD/day for two sharing, which includes all meals, camping with the Orang Asli, private access to prime jungle catch and release fly fishing and the one hour speedboat trip to and from the Royal Belum public jetty. All details will be online soon, in the meantime please email me for more details.

For the first few trips I’ll be going to make sure things operate smoothly. So you will get free casting and fishing coaching, as well as some exciting campfire stories.

Have a great week!

Cheers, Paul